Seven Years of Silence
by IlioneAgain
Summary: Amelia goes missing. When Zelgadis eventually manages to track her down he finds that she's taken a vow of silence and refuses to tell anyone why. Z/A, L/G
1. Year 1

_This is a rather strange little story that took over my brain and insisted that I write it down. It's far too quiet (pun intended) for a proper Slayers story, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway. It's loosely inspired by the fairytale about the princess whose seven brothers were turned into swans._

_Disclaimer: Obviously I am merely a fanfiction writer with no more ownership of these characters than anyone else who posts here._

* * *

><p><strong>Seven Years of Silence<strong>

Year 1

"Have you seen my daughter?" Prince Philionel asked earnestly.

"Amelia? No, actually I came here to see her. I needed to visit one of the temples in town so I thought it would be polite...She isn't here?" Zelgadis said in surprise.

He was feeling more than a little off-balance. He had just intended to briefly stop by to say hello to his old friend and then be on his way, but a servant had whisked him directly to the crown prince's personal chambers as soon as he had walked up to the palace gates. He was more disconcerted than honoured by the attention.

"No, she isn't here," Prince Phil said heavily. "I sent her off to go fight for justice. It's good for a girl to get some fresh air once in a while instead of being cooped up in the castle all the time! I figured a few weeks of freedom and she'd be ready to settle down to her work again, but then I got this." He handed Zelgadis a letter.

The seal was already broken. When Zelgadis unfolded it, he saw that it was in Amelia's handwriting. It said

_Dear Daddy,_

_I hope you are happy and well. I've come across a task I must pursue for the sake of justice. It may be a very long time before you hear from me again so please don't worry. _

_Lots of love, _  
><em>Amelia<em>

"That came almost three months ago." Prince Phil rubbed a hand over his face. "I've sent people to look for her. Discretely, and then not-so-discretely. No one could find a trace of her. I was hoping you'd heard something."

Zelgadis shook his head. "She doesn't give any details at all in this letter, does she?"

"You can see why I'm worried."

Zelgadis frowned, now feeling a bit worried himself. "She's a tough fighter. She can probably handle anything she comes across."

"Still, would you keep an eye out for her in your travels? I can make that an official commission if you want."

"I'll make finding her my top priority after finding my cure."

* * *

><p>It was several more months before Zelgadis found any clue to Amelia's whereabouts and then it was only by chance. He took a wrong turn somewhere in between a supposed demon artifact, which turned out to be nothing more than a magicless old jar, and the rumoured location of an ancient ruin. He had completely run out of food and come to the conclusion that his map wasn't worth the paper it was printed on when the dirt road he was on finally ended in a small town. It was nothing more than a farming village truly in the middle of nowhere, which meant that he would be lucky if the inhabitants didn't take one look at his freakish appearance and chase him out of town with pitchforks, but he didn't have a lot of other options at the moment.<p>

Fortunately, the man at the general goods store only stared at his hooded and masked customer warily before leaning over the map to point out the road Zelgadis should have taken. He also gave Zel directions to the baker, the butcher and some farmers who were likely to have spare vegetables to sell.

Before leaving, Zelgadis pulled a small portrait from his pocket. It showed a girl dressed in white grinning hugely and holding up her fingers in a triumphant 'V'. "Have you seen this girl?" he asked, as he had asked so many times before.

"Why, that looks like our silent maiden!" the shopkeeper exclaimed.

"'Silent maiden'? That doesn't sound like Amelia," Zelgadis said, but he decided to follow up the lead anyway. Even false positives were rare. "Who is this 'silent maiden' and where can I find her?"

"She walked into town last summer and took over the abandoned house up in the hills above the town." He leaned out the door and pointed up the road. "It's rare enough for any new people to move here but there's something really strange about that girl. In all the time she's been here, she's never said a word. We don't know her name so we just call her 'the silent maiden'."

Even if this turned out to have nothing to do with Amelia, it was definitely odd enough to be worth investigating. Zelgadis was always on the look out for odd things because they might be connected to hidden powers and those hidden powers might help him find a way to make himself fully human again instead of the part-golem, part-demon freak he had become. He decided to postpone looking for food in favour of looking for the house the man had described.

There was only one road in town, which made it hard to take any wrong turns. After he passed the last shop the road gradually narrowed to a mere path but continued up the hill. After a steep climb, Zelgadis rose above a grove of trees and found himself faced with a sheer rock wall about ten feet high. Right where the path met the rock wall there was a cheerfully painted red door and on either side of it there were two large windows framed by open shutters. It was a house carved right into the hillside.

Zelgadis knocked loudly on the door. When there wasn't an immediate answer, he knocked again and then turned to look back the way he'd come. The view over the town and and surrounding fields was spectacular (or at least as spectacular as such a small town could provide). He turned back when he heard a distant door open and close followed by footsteps inside, and then the red door opened.

"Amelia!" he gasped.

Sure enough, there was the missing princess of Seyruun wearing a very plain, rather muddy dress and looking as astonished as he felt. Her bare feet were covered with mud too and she even had a streak of dirt on her face. He saw the first syllable of his name form silently on her lips before she clamped a hand guiltily over her mouth.

"I've been looking everywhere for you and...you're _here_? What are you doing here in the middle of nowhere?"

With a delighted smile, Amelia stepped back and waved him inside.

He followed her through a stone-walled and stone-floored room, up a few steps and out a back door into a garden. The garden was sheltered on three sides by the same rock wall the house had been carved into although the wall was shallower from this side. On the open end, it continued up the hill until it faded into trees.

Amelia gestured proudly at the rows of vegetables ripening in the sun. There were dozens of scattered beds filled with different types of flowers and vegetables covering the lower part of the hillside with a row of spindly baby trees toward the back. None of the perennial plants showed more than a year's growth. She picked a ripe tomato off one of the nearby plants and handed it to him.

"I've been searching the world for you, your father has been worried sick, and all this time you've been here growing vegetables?" Zelgadis asked in disbelief.

Amelia frowned and made a writing gesture with one finger on the other hand.

"Yes, you sent a letter but that was months ago and you didn't explain anything in it!"

Amelia bit her lip and looked away regretfully.

"Tell me now. What's going on?" Zelgadis demanded in exasperation.

Amelia shook her head.

"So what that man in town said was true? You can't talk?"

Amelia touched the necklace fastened tightly around her neck. It wasn't her usual one with the magic amplifying gem. In fact, she wasn't wearing any of her usual magical gear. Zelgadis leaned close to study the necklace.

"That's the symbol for silence. It prevents you from speaking?"

Amelia nodded.

"Then you're under an enchantment? How can I free you?" Zelgadis asked urgently.

Amelia shook her head. She unfastened the necklace, showed off her bare neck, and then put the necklace back on.

"You're wearing it by choice? But, why?"

Amelia put a hand over her heart and held up the other hand as if taking an oath and then touched her lips.

"A vow of silence?"

Amelia looked impressed that he'd gotten that one. She nodded.

"That still doesn't explain why."

She just looked back at him with an expression that gave nothing away.

"You...won't tell me?"

Amelia shook her head firmly. Then she ran over to a patch of strawberries and started searching under the leaves for ripe ones to give him.

"Is this a religious thing?"

No answer other than a couple strawberries.

"Is this some kind of spell?"

She moved on to the raspberries.

"Did you just get tired of royal paperwork and decide you'd rather live as a silent gardener hermit?"

That at least got an amused glare out of her in addition to a fistful of berries.

"Thank you for the food. I _am_ very hungry," Zelgadis admitted, giving up on the fruitless (or, from another perspective, overly fruitful) line of questioning.

Amelia pointed to him and then rubbed her belly inquiringly.

"Yes, I haven't eaten since yesterday."

After a disapproving glance, Amelia waved him to follow her back into the house, stopping on the way to wash her hands and face in a bucket of water on the rim of the well. Inside, she produced a bowl of salad and shoved it imperiously into his hands. Then she pointed to the low table occupying the other end of the room. Zelgadis obediently carried his lunch over to the table and started eating. Amelia busied herself in the kitchen end of the room and after a few minutes brought him a thick sandwich loaded with vegetables and meat.

"This is delicious!" he said, because it was.

Amelia glowed with pride.

While Zelgadis was eating, Amelia vanished into one of the rooms that opened off the main room and emerged a few minutes later wearing a clean dress. She had also washed off her feet at some point and put on shoes and socks.

"Your father is going to be so relieved to know where you are. He keeps tracking me down to ask for progress reports on my search for you," Zel commented.

Amelia looked alarmed and shook her head fiercely.

"What do you mean 'no'?"

Amelia put a finger to her lips in the gesture for "shhh".

"You don't want me to tell him where you are? Why not?"

Amelia turned sideways and hunched her shoulders slightly to create the impression of looming massively and threw out her arms wide as if to embrace the air. Then she dropped the looming pose, turned to face the opposite direction and thew out her arms again, looking upward. Then back to the first side and pose she opened her arms again but this time with a worried expression. Back to the second side, she put a hand over her mouth and cast her eyes downward regretfully. Back to the first side, pleading gestures followed by fists rubbing at imaginary tears. Back on the second side, she tore at her collar and flung out her arm as if throwing it away and then patted the air consolingly before turning her face to the side and wiping away an imaginary tear. Then she straightened up and gave Zelgadis a hopeful look fading almost immediately into frustrated despair.

"No, I think I got the gist of that," he said quickly. "You don't want your father to come here because you wouldn't be able to keep your vow of silence?"

Amelia's face lit up with delight.

"I've always been good at charades," Zelgadis said modestly, "and it helps that I've met your father. Can I at least tell him that I've found you and you're safe?"

Amelia nodded enthusiastic agreement to that.

"Can I tell Lina and Gourry where you are?"

Amelia shook her head firmly again. She leaned over the table and mimed wild eating, then ran to the kitchen and put her hands to her cheeks in an exaggerated gesture of alarm, then opened the door to the garden and made her gesture of alarm again.

Zelgadis couldn't help smiling at that. "Yes, I suppose they _would_ eat you out of house and home."

Amelia went through the gestures for the fireball spell.

"...and possibly blow up the town. Okay, I see your point there."

Amelia smirked nostalgically.

"I hesitate to ask this, but can _I_ come back to see you again?"

Amelia frowned and bit her lip thoughtfully, clearly torn between conflicting impulses. After several seconds she slowly nodded. Then she put her finger to her lips.

"I can stay if I'm quiet? Do you mean I have to respect your vow of silence or that I have to keep quiet about visiting you?"

Amelia nodded.

"Both?"

She nodded again and held up a little finger.

Zelgadis gave her a confused look.

Amelia grabbed his hand, pulled up his little finger and wrapped hers around it.

"You want me to pinky-swear? What are we, children?"

Amelia stomped her foot.

Zelgadis sighed. "Fine. I promise not to tell anyone the location of this village until you give me permission to."

She nodded, satisfied, and unlinked her pinky from his.

Once he finished eating, Amelia wiped the crumbs off the table like a good little housekeeper, picked up a large basket and waved for Zelgadis to follow her out the front door.

"We're going down to the town? Why?" he asked as they descended the path.

Amelia waved her basket and rolled her eyes.

"Picking flowers?" he guessed.

Amelia ignored him and entered the bakery.

"Good afternoon, miss," the baker said with a smile. Then she saw the not-exactly-a-man following Amelia and the smile fell off her face.

Zelgadis flinched. Amelia smiled at them both reassuringly and pointed to a pie on the counter.

"Oh, you're getting food for supper," Zelgadis finally realized.

Amelia smiled agreement and pulled out her furry purse.

Zelgadis grabbed it from her and weighed it in his hand. "This is nearly empty." His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Don't tell me that you been living for the better part of a year off the money you happened to be carrying when you came up with the hare-brained idea to take a vow of silence?"

Amelia looked annoyed and guilty.

"And the people here don't know your name? You really didn't plan this very well, did you?"

Amelia snatched her purse back indignantly and glared at him. When she tried again to reach into her purse for money, he forestalled her. "I'll pay for supper tonight and I'll loan you enough money to get by until my next visit. You can pay me back later."

Amelia reluctantly nodded, torn between resentment and gratitude.

"So you're...a friend of hers?" the baker managed with an attempt at a friendly smile, still more than a little uneasy faced with such a strange stranger.

Zelgadis gratefully took advantage of the overture. "My name is Zelgadis. Hers, since she won't tell you, is Amelia Wil-" A grip on his arm stopped him. Amelia held up a hand in a 'halt' gesture and shook her head. Zelgadis raised his brows at her. Really? Amelia looked back at him stubbornly. Zelgadis shrugged acquiescence. "Her name is Amelia."

The baker's smile warmed. "That's good to know. Welcome to Shaid, Mr. Zelgadis."

* * *

><p>"I have good news and bad news," Zelgadis said without preamble when he was ushered in to see Prince Philonel. "The good news is that I've found Amelia."<p>

The prince gave a loud shout of excitement and sagged in his chair in relief.

"The bad news is that she's sworn me to secrecy about her location. I can tell you though that she appears to be in good health and good spirits."

"What has she been doing all this time?"

"Gardening, as far as I can tell."

"What?" The prince looked deeply puzzled by this response.

"She won't tell me what she's really doing. Whatever it is, though, it requires a vow of silence."

"You mean, she can't tell you what she's doing because she's sworn not to?"

"No, I mean she refuses to speak at all. To anyone. About anything. She won't even write." He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Prince Phil. "This the list of things she asked me to bring her the next time I visit."

"It's all pictures!"

It started with a picture of her fuzzy purse with circles beside it representing coins. Below that there was a picture of books with smaller pictures to the side illustrating preferred genres. The last line consisted of oblong shapes and dots followed by an assortment of plants and flowers. There were labels next to the plants and flowers identifying them.

"There are words at the bottom here," Prince Phil pointed out.

"I wrote those in when I got Amelia to clarify what types of seeds she wanted." He spread his hands helplessly. "She refuses to communicate in anything other than pantomime and pictures. She refuses to leave the town. She refuses to give any indication whatsoever what she's up to. Whatever it is, though, it must be important to her."

"Do you have any idea at all why she's doing all this?"

"My best guess is that she's trying to break a curse the hard way."

Amelia's father frowned in concern. "What do you mean?"

"You see it in folk tales sometimes: someone (usually a maiden) having to perform some terrible, tedious task in order to break an enchantment. It's a very old form of magic. It doesn't even require magical training, just a lot of determination."

"You think my daughter is under an enchantment?" Prince Phil asked in alarm.

"No. I think she's trying to free someone else from one. But I have no idea who. You know how Amelia is. She would do it for a complete stranger if she felt their cause was just."

"My little Amelia has such a noble heart!" Prince Phil was moved to tears.

Zelgadis coughed uncomfortably. "In any case, she's agreed to let me keep visiting her even though she won't allow me to tell anyone else where she is so if you want to send her a letter or anything else - anything that I can fit in a pocket - I'll carry it to Amelia for you."

Prince Phil came to a decision. "If that's what my little girl wants then I'll respect her wishes. It seems I will have to depend on you, Mr. Zelgadis, to serve as the intermediary between my daughter and me. You have my heart-felt thanks for looking after her once again."

Rather overwhelmed by the prince's naked display of emotion, Zelgadis merely nodded.

"Should we count this as another escort job?"

Zelgadis waved the offer away. "I'll accept the reward for finding her, but I don't need any payment to keep visiting her beyond our standing deal that you give me access to all Seyruun's libraries and temples and pass on any information you come across that might lead to my cure."

"Are you sure?"

"If you were paying me too much I would feel obligated to look after her full time. This way I can keep focused on searching for my cure, visit her when I feel like it, and report in to you when my search leads me to Seyruun."

Prince Phil frowned at his coldness, but accepted the deal.


	2. Year 2

Year 2

This time when Amelia answered Zel's knock on her door, her expression turned from hopeful to delighted at the sight of him. She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the house and over to one of the doors off the main room. The last time he had been here it had led to a storeroom but now when she flung the door open he saw that it had been converted into a bedroom. During his first visit he had slept on a pile of blankets on the stone floor of the main room, which had been more comfortable than sleeping on the ground, but only marginally. Those same blankets were now spread over a straw-filled mattress. There was even a jug and wash basin in the corner. He recognized them as ones he'd admired at the house of the local potter when Amelia was introducing him to everybody during his last visit.

"Is this for me?" Zel asked in amazement.

Amelia nodded.

Zelgadis found himself oddly touched by the gesture. It was the closest thing to a home he'd had in his adult life.

"I brought you everything you asked for," he said. He started pulling things out of his pockets and piling them on the table in the main room. "It's a good thing this cloak is enchanted so that things in the pockets are only a tenth their real weight and don't take up any space. Books. Mostly from your bedroom in Seyruun plus a few on herbalism and botany since plants seem to be your latest obsession. Clothes. A lady at the palace insisted I bring them to you." The bundle of cloth was tied up with a ribbon. He suspected it contained underclothes so he'd avoided looking inside. "Seeds. I think I got all the herbs you wanted but I'm sure you'll let me know if I missed any. Letters from an amazing number of people. Don't worry; they know you won't write back. Finally, here is a new purse full of money." It wasn't large but it was full to bursting and extremely heavy for its size, probably because most of the contents were gold. Amelia looked inside and her eyes widened.

"Don't thank me. That's from your father."

Amelia looked at all the things on the table and smiled at Zel as widely as it was possible to smile. Then, finding that insufficient to express her gratitude, she hugged him.

"Oh! Uh, you're welcome?" Zelgadis said, completely flustered.

Amelia's eyes laughed at his discomfiture. She gave him an extra squeeze for good measure and then let him go.

"So, where do you want me to put all these books?"

Amelia looked around thoughtfully and then pointed to the corner of the room with the lowest traffic.

"You can't just leave them in a pile on the floor!"

Amelia spread her hands as if to say, what else can I do?

Zelgadis looked around at her distinct lack of furniture. "If you don't have a bookcase, I guess I'll have to make you one."

Amelia looked surprised and impressed.

"I mean, how hard can it be to nail a few pieces of wood together?"

Amelia suddenly looked a lot less confident in his abilities.

The finished bookcase had a tendency to lean to one side at the slightest push and the corners didn't meet quite right despite all Zel's careful measurements, but wedging it in the corner mostly took care of the leaning and it had enough shelf space for ten times as many books as Zelgadis had brought. When all the books were neatly lined up on the left half of the top shelf, Amelia clasped her hands in delight and Zelgadis gave a satisfied nod.

Then Amelia grabbed Zel's hand and pulled him over to her bedroom. She knelt down beside the mattress and held her hand about two feet above the ground.

Zelgadis made a noise of incomprehension.

Amelia grabbed a piece of slate and some chalk and quickly sketched a picture for him.

"Oh. You want me to make you a bed?" he said, taken aback.

Amelia nodded happily.

"What have I gotten myself into?" he muttered, rubbing the back of his head ruefully.

* * *

><p>Zelgadis and Amelia were walking through the forest in companionable silence when Zel heard a loud rustling in bushes ahead. He gestured for Amelia to stay where she was and crept forward to get a better look. It was a bear. He was about to tell Amelia to stay quiet and wait for the bear to pass by but when he looked back to where he'd left her she wasn't there. He looked around. No sign of her.<p>

Before he could start searching for her, a fistful of freeze arrows flew out of the bushes ahead and to the right of him and froze the bear in place. It bellowed in confusion and reared up on its hind legs. More freeze arrows encased it in ice up to the shoulders. Then Amelia stepped out of the bushes and calmly plunged a sword up through its throat into its skull. A very familiar sword. Zelgadis put a hand to his scabbard and found it empty. What the hell did she think she was doing?

Amelia awkwardly yanked his sword free of the bear and blood poured out of its throat, staining the ice covering its chest red.

Zelgadis stalked out of the bushes. "Are you insane? What was that about?" He reclaimed his sword from her unresisting hand and set about cleaning it. "And how did you manage to cast those freeze arrows when you can't talk?"

Amelia demonstrated the answer to the third question by going through a series of gestures that ended with a small ball of fire in the palm of her hand. She used the fire to start slowly melting the ice.

"You've taught yourself to cast spells without words," Zelgadis said in awe. It was something any sufficiently strong mage could do with enough practice but few bothered since it was almost as much work to learn to cast the spell without words as it had been to learn to cast the spell in the first place and didn't add anything to the spell's power or reduce its casting time. Even though the spells Amelia had demonstrated so far were fairly low level, it was still an impressive feat.

When he finished cleaning the bear blood off his sword, he sheathed it and went to go help Amelia. He held up a hand. "Flare..."

Amelia tackled him.

"Why don't you want me to use flare arrows? It would be a lot faster than the spell you're using."

Amelia spread her arms out protectively in front of the dead bear. Then she stroked the fur on its head and looked at him hopefully.

"You killed it in cold blood but now you don't want me to hurt a hair on its poor little head?" Zelgadis said disgustedly.

Amelia looked frustrated but grudgingly nodded as if to say, 'close enough.'

"Fine, we'll do it your way," Zelgadis grumbled.

After they painstakingly freed the bear from the ice, Amelia wanted him to carry it home.

"Do you know how much that thing weighs?" Zelgadis protested.

Amelia shook her head at him in disgust, closed her eyes with a fierce scowl of concentration and silently cast the levitation spell on the bear. She picked up the bear's feet and looked impatiently at Zel.

With a sigh, he cast his own levitation spell on the bear and picked up its front legs. At the strength they'd cast them, the levitation spells weren't enough to make the bear float but they did make it a lot lighter to carry.

A very long slog through the forest later, they got back to the town. Amelia put down her end of the bear and pointed in a different direction when Zel tried to take the path up to her house. He resignedly followed her directions. Soon his nose told him where they were headed: the tanner's shop. Suddenly Amelia's incomprehensible motivations started to make sense.

When they got to the tanner's yard and set down their burden, he asked, "Did you deliberately take me out in the forest because you wanted a bear pelt?"

Amelia smiled in relief that he had finally got it and nodded. She hugged herself.

"Because bear fur is snuggly-warm?" Zelgadis couldn't help smiling at her cute gesture. His irritation at being forced to drag a bear through the woods was rapidly evaporating now that he understood the reason for it.

The tanner came out to greet them. His eyes widened at the sight of the bear. "You killed a _bear_? I know I said that there's nothing better than a bear pelt to keep you warm in the winter but I didn't think you'd actually go hunt one!"

Amelia grinned proudly.

"And this fur is in perfect condition too," the tanner said, walking around the dead beast. "I'm not even going to ask why its wet."

Amelia indicated by means of drawing lines on the bear with her fingers that she wanted it turned into a rectangular blanket.

"I can do that," the tanner agreed. "And for payment...the fur off the legs, head and any other bits you don't want and a quarter of the meat. After I skin it, I'll take it to the butcher. I expect he'll want half the meat, leaving a quarter for you."

Amelia held out her hand to shake on the deal.

After shaking hands with her, the tanner said, "I'll get the meat to you tomorrow and the pelt before the first snow falls."

Amelia nodded her satisfaction.

The tanner turned to Zelgadis. "You're quite the hunter," he said admiringly.

"Oh no, not me," Zelgadis corrected him quickly. "It was all Amelia. I just helped her carry it back."

The tanner stared at Amelia in awed disbelief.

* * *

><p>"What's going on?" Zelgadis asked.<p>

Despite the chimera's unusual appearance, the boy barely gave him a glance before answering excitedly. "An eating contest. The last two contestants are on their tenth plates and still going strong!"

Zelgadis stood on tiptoe to see over the heads of the substantial crowd. What he saw made him groan, "Not this again." A red haired girl and a blond man were scarfing down food with no regard whatsoever for table manners. Empty plates were piled high beside them. With a disapproving sigh and an involuntary smile, Zelgadis settled down on the edge of the nearest fountain to wait for them to finish.

When they finally dropped their forks, Gourry with a reluctant groan and Lina with a triumphant cheer followed by a loud burp, Zelgadis wandered over to greet them.

"Hi!" Gourry waved to him cheerfully.

That got Lina's attention. "Zel!" she exclaimed excitedly. "What are you doing here?"

"The usual. Picking up some supplies before heading into the catacombs left behind by the Kingdom of Letidius."

"Hey, us too!" Lina grinned. "If Amelia was here we'd have the whole gang together again. I wish she was here. Those catacombs are probably haunted so we could use somebody on the team with exorcism spells. Have you run into her lately?"

"Yes, actually," Zelgadis replied. "I visited her just last month."

"Oh yeah, that whole living in the woods like a hermit thing. I forgot about that," Lina remarked.

"Amelia's living in the woods? Since when?" Gourry asked.

"In the hillside above a town, actually," Zelgadis corrected them with no expectation of actually being listened to.

Lina smacked Gourry with a napkin. "Since over a year ago! When she vanished! You remember hearing about that, right? And then it turned out that she'd sworn a vow of silence? I mean, how weird is that?"

"It's hard to picture Amelia being silent all the time. She loved to talk so much," Gourry remarked.

"It takes some getting used to," Zelgadis said.

"Well, they do say a silent wife is the best kind of wife," Gourry observed sagely.

"Do they?" Lina said dangerously. "I've never heard that."

"I don't see why anyone would say that," Zelgadis said. "Amelia still manages to scold me and order me around. The last time I was there she made me spend two straight days helping her make preserves. Speaking of which, these are for you." He handed Lina a jar of pickled beets and Gourry a jar of blackberry jelly.

"Thanks, I'll, uh, open it later," Lina said, looking queasy at the sight of food after her twelve-course meal.

"The time before that, she made me cut down a tree. And then chop it into firewood. The entire tree! And then dig up the stump. And then turn the hole into a new vegetable bed. I have never been more exhausted in my entire life."

"Yeah, Amelia can make a lot of demands on a guy," Gourry said feelingly.

"That sounds rough. If she treats you like that, why to do keep visiting her?" Lina asked.

"I don't really mind," Zelgadis admitted. "That firewood will keep her warm this winter."

"It feels good to be needed, doesn't it?" Gourry said.

"Yeah," Zel agreed softly.

"So what do the people in the town say about you visiting her?" Lina asked nosily. "I know what the people in my hometown would say about a young man who shows up to do a girl's chores for her."

"Honestly, I think they're just glad that I'm there to do them so they don't have to help her out of charity like they did the first winter she was there."

"C'mon, they gossip about you, don't they? Admit it!"

Zelgadis grimaced. "This is a town so quiet that they're still talking about somebody's goat eating his neighbour's fruit trees two years later. What do you think?"

"So between your freaky looks and Amelia's freaky vow of silence and the fact that you stay alone with her in her house for days at a time, chop her firewood and help her with chores...they pretty much never stop talking about you?"

Zelgadis hung his head. "Pretty much. Plus she can cast recovery spells (without a spoken invocation no less) and she once single-handedly killed a bear."

"Did Amelia also make that very stylish scarf you're wearing?" Lina snickered.

Zelgadis fingered the scarf in question self-consciously. "She did, as a matter of fact."

"Amelia knits?" Gourry asked.

"Not very well," Lina pointed out. The scarf was full of runs of too-tight or too-loose stitches and even some outright holes and the width wobbled between a hands-width thick and nearly twice that.

"She got bored last winter so she got someone to teach her."

"I'd have to be pretty bored to take up knitting!" Lina laughed.

"You know how energetic Amelia is. Now picture her alone in a house with nothing to do. No travelling. No royal duties. Frozen garden. No books. She couldn't even talk to anyone."

Lina winced. "Okay, that's pretty bored."

"If Lina was ever trapped with nothing to do like that, I think she'd blow up the whole world!" Gourry said in awestruck horror.

"Amelia can get pretty scary too. It once rained for three days straight while I was there. She cleaned the house from top to bottom, reorganized the storeroom twice and made several dozen cookies, two pies and three of the best suppers I have ever had in my life."

"Amelia can cook?" Gourry asked.

"She can now," Zelgadis confirmed.

"Maybe we'll have to visit her," Lina said hungrily.

"Good luck finding the place."

"It can't be that hard. You found it."

"Only because I took a wrong turn and got completely lost. Besides, even if by some amazing coincidence you stumble across the village, like I did, you won't find Amelia. After I found her, she asked the people there not to tell any more strangers about her."

"_Amelia_ told them that? I thought she didn't talk."

"Fine. _I_ told them, but I was just translating her request."

"You should have pretended not to understand her."

"That occurred to me later. But I think my ability to understand her is the main reason why she lets me keep visiting."

"Plus, all the chores can't hurt either," Gourry suggested.

"There's that," Zelgadis agreed.

"So, how often _do_ you visit her?" Lina asked.

"Every couple of months unless I'm too far away to get back that quickly. I usually end up staying about a week since Amelia keeps finding things for me to do."

"That's a lot of time to take away from searching for your cure!" Lina said, surprised.

"It's not like the searching ever leads to finding anything useful," Zelgadis said bitterly. Then, less bitterly. "And I like it there. It's peaceful."

"That sounds nice," Gourry said politely.

Lina shrugged. "It doesn't sound appealing at all to me (other than the good food), but to each his own. Now, about these catacombs..."

* * *

><p>"...and then of course Gourry, being Gourry, walked straight into a pit trap. Fortunately, Lina managed to catch his hair before he fell so he didn't hit the spikes at the bottom and we were able to pull him back up, but you should have heard him screaming!"<p>

Amelia laughed silently.

The two of them were sitting in front of a blazing fire eating jam cookies and hot cider while the winter wind howled outside the shutters. Amelia had her bear skin wrapped around her shoulders.

When they finished their snack and Zelgadis finished his story, Amelia brushed the crumbs off her fingers and retrieved her knitting from her bedroom. She was working on a blanket. For a time there was no sound other than the wind, the fire and her needles softly clicking together. Amelia apparently decided this was too quiet because she put down her knitting, fetched a book from the bookcase and handed it to Zelgadis.

"The Tale of the Red Knight?" He shrugged in resignation. "Lighting." A small ball of light appeared by his shoulder. He opened the book. "Listen well to the tale of the Red Knight, strong champion of Letidius, unparalleled in courage..."

Amelia smiled happily as she resumed her knitting.


	3. Year 3

Year 3

Amelia wasn't home. Zelgadis had knocked three times and then let himself in. (The door wasn't locked.) All her stuff looked normal so she was probably just out shopping or something. He was on his way back to town to look for her there when a girl perhaps ten or twelve years old met him coming the other direction. Zelgadis recognized her as the baker's daughter.

"Hello," she said cheerfully. "If you're looking for Miss Amelia, she's in the church holding a clinic. It was the mayor's idea. They thought you'd be back by now."

"I would have been, but on the way here I heard that in Taforashia they'd discovered the house of a powerful sorceress lost in the vines. She died of the plague and everyone forgot it was there and...you understood about one word in three of that, didn't you?"

The girl smiled at him patiently.

"The church you said? Right." Zelgadis headed toward the building.

The girl trailed behind him. "Is Miss Amelia really a priestess of Ceipheed?" she asked.

"A fairly high ranking one, I believe, although you wouldn't know it from the way she acts most of the time," Zelgadis answered absentmindedly.

The girl giggled and ran off in the direction of her house.

Inside the church, a small crowd of people was standing around idly under the benevolent gaze of the crude statue of Ceipheed. There was an outbreak of pointing and whispering when Zel stepped in the door. Most of the people in the town itself barely reacted to his stone skin at all any more, which was one of the reasons why he found this place so restful, but the same could not be said for the outlying farm families. One woman in particular was openly staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. Zelgadis took an involuntary step backward and reached reflexively for his face covering, but he forced himself to stop. This was his home turf, or the closest thing he had to any. He had every right to be here. He glared back at the woman and she finally dropped her gaze.

Amelia spotted him and waved him over, visibly radiating relief. She finished the recovery spell she was casting on a little boy's wrist and then led Zel right up to the same woman who had been staring at him. The girl standing beside the woman - probably her daughter, judging by the resemblance - gave a deep, hacking cough. Zelgadis winced at the thought of having to talk to them, but when he glared at the woman challengingly she merely looked back at him with weary hope. Appeased, he turned his attention to Amelia.

Amelia went through a rapid series of gestures that included stabbing a finger at the open page of a book, placing one forearm on top of the other across her chest and raising the top one, and holding up a spoon.

"I didn't get any of that," Zelgadis said. "Some context please?"

Amelia handed him the book and pointed to a particular paragraph. Zelgadis skimmed it. "...expectorant and cough suppressing properties...steep in honey...fights infections...toxic in concentrations exceeding... Okay, got it. Now, what was the rest of the message?"

Amelia held up two fingers on one hand and a spoon in the other hand. Then she put them down and picked up a small jar of syrup. Then the spoon again. Then crossed forearms with the top arm lifting. Then the spoon again, and finally the crossed arms again but this time with the other one on top and descending instead of lifting.

"What's this?" Zelgadis imitated the rising arm gesture.

Amelia blew out air through her teeth in frustration and dragged him outside. She pointed to the sun.

"Sun..."

She did the arm gesture again.

"...Rise? Sunrise and sunset?"

Amelia nodded.

Zelgadis went back to the mother and daughter. He said slowly and clearly in case they were as stupid as they were rustic, "Take two small spoonfuls of this cough syrup a day, one at sunrise, one at sunset. Don't take any more than that because this is a powerful medicine and it's easy to overdose." He looked to Amelia for confirmation.

She threw up her arms in a 'finally!' gesture and nodded.

The rest of the prescriptions went a lot more smoothly.

* * *

><p>The snow was falling so thickly that Zelgadis could only see a few feet. Since those few feet didn't include any trees he assumed he was still on the path. Wasn't this kingdom supposed to have a dry climate? It was just his luck to arrive here on the day of what would probably prove to be the worst blizzard of the decade.<p>

If he was going to end up snowed in, he would much rather it be in Amelia's house than in a snowbank so he pushed onward. Time seemed to stand still as he crunched through the changeless, unbroken whiteness of the fresh snow. Well, not entirely changeless. It was slowly getting deeper. It was above his ankles now. Mere hours ago, before the snow started, the ground had been bare brown. He kept slogging forward, mind more numb than his fingertips.

Faced with a sudden, knee-deep snowdrift, he looked up. The view, such as it was, seemed both darker and lighter than before. Darker because the sun was setting. Lighter because it was no longer enclosed by trees. He could make out the shapes of houses through the snow. Finally!

Without any tree branches to absorb part of the load, the snow was deeper here, and the wind had blown it into drifts that varied from too shallow to cover the toes of his boots up to nearly waist-deep. To make it worse, the fresh snow was too soft to support his weight (which was unsurprising given that he weighed much more than a normal human of his size) so however deep the snow was, that was how far he had to lift his boot to take his next step. Dusk had turned into night by the time he finally made it through the town and up the hill but finally he saw Amelia's red door in front of him.

He knocked but then, too cold to wait, just opened the door and stepped into the warm interior. Amelia was there, sitting by the fire. At his appearance, she dropped whatever project she had been working on and ran to help him tug off his snow-encrusted cape, boots and shirt. He fended her off, blushing furiously, when she tried to reach for his pants.

She blushed too and started to hang up his snowy clothes by the fire while he went into his bedroom to get some dry clothes. He changed out of his cold, wet pants into pyjamas and went back to join Amelia in front of the fire, hanging his pants with the rest of his wet clothes.

When he sat down, she held up her knitting against him and nodded in satisfaction. It was the start of an intricate cable sweater made from creamy, unbleached wool. Zelgadis touched his chest in surprise. For me?

Amelia gave him a brilliant smile.

Before long, he fell asleep on the hearth, head pillowed on his arms and face turned toward the warmth of the fire. When he woke up in the morning, there was a pillow under his head and blankets over the rest of him, and the snow was almost up to the window sills.

However, that apparently hadn't stopped Amelia from going out. When he went to return his pillow and blankets to his room, he opened the shutters to see how deep the snow was in the garden and discovered that there was a path forced through the snow from the back door to the well and then toward the back of the garden where the young fruit trees were. Amelia was just making her way back to the house with a watering can in her hand. She saw him looking at her and stopped in her tracks. They stared at each other soberly for a long moment. Finally Amelia continued on her way.

Zelgadis met her at the back door. It was his turn to help her strip off snowy outer clothes and hang them by the fire. Amelia squirmed in suspense although she tried not to.

Finally, Zelgadis broke the silence. "What will I find at the end of that path? The lime tree?" Amelia's guilty eyes confirmed his guess. "I thought it was suspicious you were trying to grow it this far north. I almost caught you watering the garden in the rain a few times but you do it so early in the morning I was never sure. That's your task isn't it? To water that lime tree every day. That's why you refuse to travel more than a few hours from this house."

Amelia started needlessly smoothing out her wet clothes on the rack.

"I knew you had a task. There had to be more to this than just the vow of silence. But that still doesn't tell me what enchantment you're trying to break, or why."

Amelia looked at him wide-eyed as if to say, 'Enchantment? What enchantment?'

"Keep your secrets. I know you have reasons for them. Now, what's for breakfast?"

Amelia blinked in surprise, gave him a grateful smile like the sun dawning, and went to look in the kitchen.

* * *

><p>"Are you looking forward to Community Clean-up Day tomorrow?" the baker asked conversationally while Amelia was out in the back yard gathering herbs for the day's herb bread.<p>

"Community Clean-up Day?" Zelgadis repeated blankly.

"Every spring after the snow melts we set a day to get together to clean up all the public spaces. It's amazing how much dirt, garbage and animal droppings get buried in the snowbanks during the winter. Then the snow melts and there it all is at once! So we sweep the road, pick up the garbage around town, fix up the church if it needs it and so on, and then in the evening we have a big dance. It's really the highlight of early spring."

Zelgadis thought grimly that it was a sign just how boring this town was that they considered picking up garbage the highlight of the season. However, all he said was, "I won't be able to go. I'm planning to leave town as soon as I finish breakfast."

Amelia came back inside in time to hear his response and she did not look happy about it. After the baker left, she looked up at Zelgadis with big, sad eyes.

"I have to go," he said uncomfortably. "I don't mind helping you out with spring cleaning while I'm here but it's been over a week now and we've scrubbed everything in this house. I still have a cure to search for, you know."

Amelia handed him a hoe and rake and looked at him pleadingly.

"You want me to turn over the soil in your vegetable beds and clear away the dead leaves before I go?"

Amelia nodded enthusiastically.

"Fine. I'll do those last two things for you but then I'm leaving."

Amelia nodded smugly. Her plan to stall him one more day so he would be forced to stay for Community Clean-up Day and the dance couldn't be more transparent. However, she was forgetting something very important.

Zelgadis finished his breakfast and then went out into the garden. He knelt down next to the first vegetable bed, touched a finger to the soil and used low-powered earth spells to churn the dirt until all the old roots were ripped apart. He repeated the spells on each of the other beds. Then he used air spells to blow all the dead leaves that had fallen onto the garden away into the forest. He returned to the house ten minutes after he'd left it, picked up his packed lunch off the kitchen counter and waved goodbye to Amelia.

With a sigh of defeat and wistful smile, she waved goodbye in return.

* * *

><p>Amelia was reading a book on silent spell casting with the air of one performing a boring duty. Zelgadis was also finding it hard to concentrate on his book, a collection of legends he had read far too many times before, so he put it down and got out the game board. He held up a checker piece and a chess piece in front of Amelia inquiringly. She pointed to the chess piece without hesitation.<p>

They were deep in a game when there was an urgent knock on the door. Zelgadis answered the door. A girl was standing there, "Please, sir, it's my little brother. He was climbing the rocks and he fell. He's hurt really badly!"

Amelia ran to grab her cloak and shoes. Zelgadis put a hand on his own cloak and looked at Amelia questioningly. She shook her head. She could handle this on her own.

Just before she left she pointed at the chess board and wagged her finger at him. He put his hand to his chest in mock-injury. Me? Cheat? Never!

When she got back, Zelgadis launched the strategy he'd been planning the whole time she was gone. He managed to capture her knight and bishop, but in the end she still won.


	4. Year 4

Year 4

"I brought you some new books," Zelgadis said, unloading the latest bunch from his pockets.

Amelia had been about to rush to the kitchen to expand her supper preparations now that she was cooking for two rather than one, but she postponed that in favour of flipping through the new books. When she saw the illustrations of princesses, witches, and heroic youths, her eyes lit up. She quickly became so absorbed in reading that Zelgadis had to finish supper himself.

Amelia probably assumed he had picked the books just because he thought she'd like them but they were actually part of a cunning plan to learn more about the enchantment she was either under or trying to break. Most of the stories in the books involved enchantments being broken in one way or another. Zel figured that Amelia would naturally be most interested in the stories that were closest to her own situation so all he had to do was carefully but surreptitiously watch which stories she read the most often and look for patterns.

A few days later, he had definitely spotted a pattern. It made him more than a little uncomfortable, but he wasn't going to let embarrassment stand in the way of helping Amelia. He compared the stories she'd been reading or asking him to read to her to the ones she'd been ignoring one more time to see if there was any other common element he'd missed, but the pattern was very clear. He re-shelved the books and went out to talk to Amelia. She was in the garden, sprawled on a patch of clover between two flower beds with a book open in front of her, absorbed in yet another story that fit the pattern.

"Amelia, do you want me to kiss you?" he asked, trying to maintain a tone of clinical detachment and not blush.

Amelia sat up abruptly and stared at him as if she wasn't sure she'd heard him right.

"I said, do you want me to kiss you?" he repeated, definitely blushing now.

Amelia nodded enthusiastically.

Zelgadis knelt down in front of her. He wasn't usually a clumsy person but he suddenly felt awkwardly unsure of how he should sit or where to put his hands. He settled for putting them on his knees. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. He pulled back and they studied each other's faces.

"Did that help break your enchantment?" Zel asked hopefully.

Amelia looked puzzled and shook her head.

"...Because you're not under an enchantment? You were just reading the stories about enchantments being broken by a kiss because you like romance, weren't you?" Zelgadis felt like an idiot.

Amelia looked enlightened. She hid a silent giggle behind her hand.

"Then why did you say you wanted me to kiss you?" Zel demanded.

Amelia took his face in her hands and kissed him again. It was unlike any sensation he had ever experienced before in his life. For a long moment, surprise and pleasure held him captive but then he gently pushed her away.

"No, we shouldn't start anything we can't continue. I'm a chimera, remember?"

That argument completely failed to dissuade Amelia. She looked at him admiringly.

"I'm prickly and rough to the touch. You don't want that, do you?"

Amelia reached out to show him again just how much she wanted him.

He caught her hands and held them so she couldn't get close enough to kiss him again. "I know the people here think we're in love with each other and practically living together, but they don't know who you really are. You are planning to finish this task of yours, whatever it is, and go back to your old life someday, right?"

Amelia nodded.

"And when you do, you'll find some handsome prince to be your true love. I don't want to be just an embarrassment from your past."

Amelia made a face at his mention of a handsome prince. She freed one of her hands and cupped his cheek with it. She looked into his eyes with such love that his breath caught in his throat. Even though everything he'd said was true, if she didn't care then neither did he. He leaned forward, almost without meaning to, and kissed her again.

That ended up being a much longer visit than usual.

* * *

><p>When he did finally leave he only managed to stay away a few weeks before returning to knock on her door again. Amelia greeted him with a kiss that almost knocked him off his feet. Unfortunately, after only a few dozen more kisses she had to break away to rescue a pot on the stove that was threatening to boil over. It looked like she was in the middle of brewing medicine.<p>

While she was tending to that, Zel took the opportunity to change out of his travel-stained clothes, but ran into a problem. "Amelia, where's my bedroom?" He had opened his bedroom door only to find that the room had mysteriously transformed back into a storeroom in the time since his last visit.

After removing the pot of medicine from the heat completely, Amelia came over and opened her own bedroom door. The mattress in her room was now back on the floor and twice its former width.

"No," Zelgadis breathed in dismay. "No, we can't. I know on my last visit we, um..." His blue face turned a purplish shade of red. "Well, you know... But that was just a careless moment of passion. We can't start sleeping together like, like we're married or something. You're still a princess and I'm still a chimera, and-"

Since Amelia couldn't argue back, as usual she chose to skip straight past arguing to winning. She cut off his words with a kiss, not a sweet and gentle kiss but a kiss intended to conquer. After a few seconds Zelgadis stopped trying to talk or push her away. After a minute, he let her pull him down onto the bed.

A few days later, Amelia found Zel at work with a chisel on a large block of wood. She touched the wood and tilted her head at him inquiringly.

"This is going to be the headboard for our new bed," he explained. "I'm carving it with scenes from some of your favourite stories. The Red Knight here, King Permeon of Elmekia and his Lancers here, the Fair Maid of Mane - hey!" He barely avoided blunting his chisel on his skin as Amelia launched herself at him and started covering his face with kisses.

* * *

><p>"Maybe we can find some record of it in Taforashia? After all, it's from before the colony was founded," Lina suggested.<p>

The threesome were in Sairaag and had just once again found that the trail of the knowledge they were seeking ended in water damage. It wasn't surprising, given that the ancient City of Magic had been turned into a steaming, waterlogged crater a few years previously, but it was frustrating. Fortunately, much of Sairaag's lost lore had been preserved in its daughter city, Taforashia, and the prince of that city was a friend of theirs.

Zelgadis dropped the ink-smeared clump of paper he'd been trying to pick apart and nodded.

A week later, at a crossroads, Zelgadis asked, "Do you mind taking a detour through Seyruun since we're in the area anyway? I have something I need to drop off."

"Playing errand boy for Amelia again?" Lina teased.

"Such is my fate," Zel agreed easily.

"Sure, why not? Gourry?"

"Fine with me," the swordsman said.

When they got to the palace, it turned out that Prince Phil was in the middle of a council session. Zel offered to leave Amelia's gift there with a note, but the servant told them to wait while he checked what the prince wanted them to do. To their surprise, he returned with the news that all three of them were invited to the council room. It wasn't the kind of honour that could be turned down, as much as they would have preferred to do so.

As they walked into the room, white-clad, turbaned men stared at them from all down the length of the large table. Prince Philionel was seated at the head of the table, as massive as ever in white and gold.

"Hi Phil!" Lina called out indomitably.

"Miss Lina," he acknowledged her with a nod. "I see you are as energetic as ever."

"You know me. I'll never change," Lina said with a nervous laugh.

Prince Phil turned his attention to the chimera of the group. "Mr. Zelgadis, you have something for me?"

"Uh, yes." Zelgadis looked around, feeling a bit awkward handing it over in such a setting. "Amelia knit you a sweater." He slid the bulky package, wrapped in paper to keep it clean and tied with a bow, down the smooth table to the prince. "She says you would have had it last winter if you weren't so big. She compared it to knitting two double-bed-sized blankets."

"Amelia said that? I thought she didn't talk!" Lina said.

"It involved a lot of pointing and making faces, but her meaning was clear enough. Why are you so hung up on the details?"

Prince Phil opened the package and held up the sweater. His eyes filled with tears. "My little Amelia made this for me with her own hands!" He hugged it to his chest.

"Amelia made _that_?" Lina muttered in surprise. "That looks nothing like your lousy scarf!"

"Practice," Zel said succinctly.

One of the councillors said in a tone completely lacking in warmth, "We called you here so that we could all hear your report on Princess Amelia."

Zelgadis tried to gather his thoughts quickly. "There isn't much to report since the last time I was here. She's switched two more beds from vegetables to herbs in order to keep up with demand for her spices and medicines and she had me dig two new vegetable beds to make up for it. She put up curtains. That's about it."

"You aren't hiding anything, are you?" the councillor asked suspiciously.

Zel thought guiltily about the change in their sleeping arrangements. "Of course not. Why would I?"

The councillor sat back and turned to Prince Phil. "I still find it troubling that this...young man is our sole source of information on your daughter. We have only his word that he actually found her and only his word that he has seen her since."

"Nonsense," the prince huffed. "Why just today he brought me this sweater my daughter made for me and at other times he's brought me all sorts of canned preserves and medicines."

"All things he could easily have bought in any village," the councillor persisted. There were murmurs of agreement all up and down the table.

"To what purpose?" Zel asked coldly.

The councillor gave him only a brief glance before continuing to address the prince. "How do you know that he isn't keeping the money you send her for himself and giving you these trinkets in exchange?"

"There's one problem with that theory," Zelgadis said, voice icy with rage. "He hasn't sent any money since the first time. Ever since then all I've been carrying back to Amelia have been letters and a few small presents of more sentimental than financial value."

Prince Phil nodded confirmation.

"How much money did you send the first time?" a different councillor asked in a puzzled tone.

"Five hundred gold pieces."

"And that was...three years ago? Then what's she been living on since then?"

Zelgadis smiled thinly, eye still icy. "She makes a good enough living as an herbalist and healer to buy the few things we can't grow or make ourselves. I believe she's spent about twenty of the gold pieces her father gave her, but she's earned several times that much in smaller coins from selling her potions. And, of course, I buy things with my own money too."

"So you'd have us believe you visit her every few months purely out of the goodness of your heart with no recompense at all?" the first councillor said mockingly.

"No, I don't visit Amelia out of the goodness of my heart!" Zelgadis said angrily. "I visit her because I like visiting her. She gives me friendship, good food and a roof over my head. For someone like me those are not things to take for granted!"

Prince Phil said soothingly, "Mr. Zelgadis has my full trust. He has always proven to be a true ally to Seyruun in the past, which is why I named him a knight of the realm, and I've seen no evidence to make me suspect he's been anything other than honest about Amelia since she vanished."

"Are you really content to allow him to be our sole contact with our princess?"

"Better one contact than none," Prince Phil said. "I've had people continue to look for her since Mr. Zelgadis is not at liberty to disclose her location, but no one else has had any success. What more would you have me do?"

The table erupted into low-voiced discussions.

"Gee, they really hate you, don't they, Zel?" Lina whispered.

"I'd noticed," he muttered back.

"But aren't you kind of doing them a favour by looking after Amelia and letting them know she's okay?" Gourry asked.

"So you'd think. It doesn't matter. I'm not doing it for them."

Prince Phil caught their eyes and waved a hand to give them permission to leave. Around him the council continued to argue fiercely. The threesome left the room without needing a second invitation.

* * *

><p>On impulse, Zelgadis stopped by the bakery on his way home to Amelia. As he handed over a few copper coins in exchange for a strawberry-rhubarb pie, the baker gave him a knowing glance.<p>

She said, "My sister's daughter was up at your house to buy some cough drops the other day and she saw something veeeerrry interesting. She says there's only one bedroom in the house these days and it has a double bed. Now, what do you have to say about that?"

"I would say that's none of her business, or yours," Zelgadis said coldly.

"Don't you think it's about time you two finally have a proper wedding?" the woman persisted.

Zelgadis left the shop without another word.

The mayor was waiting for him just outside. He said, "May I have a few words with you, Mr. Zelgadis?" He led Zel to the church and into his office. Besides being the town's mayor he was also the priest and lawyer although he made his real living from his farm just outside town. His good-natured and extremely competent son handled most of the day-to-day running of the farm in order to free the old man up to pursue his administrative roles. The mayor and Amelia had become good friends since she had taken on the role of town priestess. The hierarchy was extremely unclear since he ran the church and presided over all religious functions but she could perform actual miracles. However, they made it work based on unfailing mutual respect and a clear division of responsibilities.

"As you know, I've taken something of a fatherly interest in Amelia since she has no family of her own here," he began. "The word around town is that you two have moved from just living together to sleeping together. Do you have plans to get married?"

"We can't. How can Amelia take any vows without speaking or using her full name?"

"A nod's as good as an 'I do' as long as the intention is there, and since a wedding is all about recognition by the community, I think the name the community knows her by will serve just as well as the name she was born with."

"A wedding is all about the community?" Zelgadis repeated skeptically. "I thought it was about the couple getting married."

"Of course it's about the community. If all you wanted to celebrate was how much the two of you love each other, well, I'm sure whatever you get up to behind closed doors celebrates that just fine. No, a wedding is about the two of you making a promise to the rest of us that you'll take care of each other and any children you may have and that you won't screw around with anyone but each other. Without that kind of thing, you end up with households falling apart and women and children - and men, for that matter - being left without support. Then the community has to step in to pick up the pieces. It's a burden on everybody, and it just gets ugly. That's why in a small, close-knit community like this it's important to everybody that when a man and woman start sleeping together a wedding soon follows. Of course, it's preferable if the wedding comes first, but it seems it's a bit late for that in your case." He gave Zelgadis a piercing look.

Zelgadis found himself blushing furiously at the man's bluntness, but managed to answer with some dignity. "You know I will always take care of Amelia as long as she needs me, and I doubt I could find anyone else to 'screw around' with even if I wanted to, but I can't marry her."

"Why not?"

"How can I put this without revealing anything Amelia's forbidden me to tell you?" He thought for a minute. "Despite how she looks, Amelia actually comes from a rather wealthy and well-connected family. She may even be an heiress. She does have an older sister but she's been missing even longer than Amelia has and writes home only slightly more frequently. Amelia's family and, uh, 'community' would never accept her marrying someone like me. I mean, would you want one of your daughters to marry someone with my face who spends three-quarters of his time off searching for a cure? I know when we're here it seems like we belong together, but out there in the real world we really, really don't, and Amelia's told me that she is planning to go back to her old life someday."

"I see," the mayor said with a frown. He didn't look satisfied with that answer, but he did let Zelgadis continue on his way.

As Zel passed the last house on the way out of town, a little boy sitting on the rooftop catcalled. "Going home to your _wife_?"

His friend, sitting beside him, joined in, "Zelgadis and Amelia sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g!" Both little boys burst into laughter.

Zelgadis glared at them and ran up the hill with slightly more than human speed.

"Unbelievable!" he shouted as he put the pie down on the table. "The people in this town need to learn to mind their own business!"

Amelia had been sitting at the table, drawing something on her slate. At his appearance, she slid around the table and into his arms. As she kissed him, he felt his irritation start to melt away. "It's so good to see you," he murmured once he was free to talk again.

Amelia tilted her head at him questioningly with an inviting smile.

"Oh, what I was upset about? Everybody I ran into in town on the way here told me I ought to marry you. It's hard to explain to them why I can't without telling them who you really are."

Amelia went rigid in his arms. She glanced over at her slate lying abandoned on the table. It was covered with sketches of wedding dresses.

"You can't be serious! You and me? Get married?" he said in disbelief.

Amelia's eyes narrowed. She shook off his embrace and flung a hand in the direction of the bedroom door.

"But that's different. That's here. Here I can be the man who translates for you, makes you furniture, chops your firewood and keeps you company, but out in the wider world you're a princess. When you go back to your real life you won't need me anymore. Have you been living here so long you've lost sight of the big picture?"

Amelia looked deeply annoyed. She imitated the way he'd unconsciously thrown his arms open when he said 'wider world', then mimed swinging a sword and casting a spell. Then, with an air of exasperation, she used a stiff arm to tap him on the shoulder.

"The royal council of Seyruun may accept me as your ally and even, just barely, as a knight of Seyruun, but they'd never accept me as your husband."

Amelia made a rude gesture in the direction of the imagined royal council.

"I mean, I'm a chimera and, even if I wasn't, I'm just a common mercenary."

Amelia touched his cheek with a look in her eyes that suggested she thought he was something much better than just a common mercenary.

She made gestures for 'true love', 'here', 'wider world', and 'forever and always'. Amelia had a habit of finding ringing phrases she liked in books and making up gestures for them. 'True love' and 'forever and always' were two such phrases.

"Your father likes me, I think - moderately well, anyway - but he might feel differently if he knew the full truth about our relationship."

Amelia stared at him incredulously. When he failed to respond to her facial expression, she pointed to him, made a hand gesture for talking, did an impression of her father, pointed to Zel again and finally to herself.

"No, I haven't told him. I haven't told anyone."

Amelia threw her hands out in a 'why not?' gesture.

"I don't know. I just don't want to tell them." It felt too personal to talk about, too valuable to share.

Judging by the look on Amelia's face, she found that explanation highly unsatisfactory. She pointed to her ring finger, then made a gesture of negation as sharp as the swing of a sword and pointed to the bedroom.

Zelgadis sighed regretfully. "You're right. We shouldn't be sleeping together. I said so in the first place but you were so...irresistible." His voice turned softly nostalgic. "I thought no one could ever love a chimera like me but then you offered yourself to me. How could I resist?"

He intended that as a compliment on her attractiveness and an expression of how much that moment had meant to him, but Amelia didn't seem to take it that way. She swelled up with indignation, stabbed an accusatory finger into his chest, and launched into a justice speech.

It had been quite a while since he had last seen her give a justice speech. Her current quiet country life didn't provide as much provocation as her more adventurous former life, and it was much harder to do without being able to speak. Zelgadis knew that he was supposed to feel chagrined by the scolding but instead he merely felt impressed and amused as he watched her rapid flow of impassioned gestures. It was almost like a dance. He didn't bother to try to interpret every phrase but he did catch a few of them like 'true love', 'betrayal' and 'false-faced scoundrel'. Amelia worked herself into such a frenzy that she ended up standing on top of the ten-foot-high cliff the house was built into.

When she finally slowed to a panting halt, he called up to her, "Why don't you come back down so we can discuss it calmly?"

She grudgingly jumped down and followed him back inside the house. He noticed with embarrassment that there were a cluster of people down in the town staring up at them.

"So how can we satisfy the town's demand that we get married without creating a situation that will be an embarrassment if you ever go home?" Zelgadis asked thoughtfully. "Hmm. The mayor said that a wedding is about a promise to the community."

Amelia nodded.

"He's given you that speech too? Well, maybe a wedding where you use the name 'Amelia the silent maiden of Shaid' will be valid here but not recognized in Seyruun? What do you think?"

Amelia looked deeply into his eyes and signed, slowly and emphatically, 'Forever and always or nothing.'

"But..."

Amelia lost her temper. She pointed, finger trembling with rage, toward the front door. Then, when he didn't move, she opened the door, shoved him out of it, and slammed it behind him.

Zelgadis stood there blinking in surprise. There were still people down in the town staring up at the house. "Fine," he decided. "If that's the way you want it, then fine! Ray wing!" The bubble of air that formed around him lifted him into the air and he zoomed off over the fields and trees so that he could get back to the road without having to pass through the town again.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: The heroes that Zel carved into the headboard are not canonical but the places they're from are. Just thought you'd like to know ;-)<em>


	5. Year 5

Year 5

Zelgadis braced himself and knocked on Amelia's door. Would she still be angry?

As soon as she opened the door he said quickly, "I had something to investigate near Dragon's Peak, way on the other side of the subcontinent and it took me this long to get back." He didn't mention that he'd been putting off investigating that particular lead for more than a year before that.

Amelia just hugged him wordlessly and leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh of relief. He hugged her back, relieved in turn that she was willing to greet him with a hug rather than an accusatory finger. As that initial worry faded, he slowly noticed that there was something wrong with the feeling of Amelia in his arms.

Before he could place what was wrong, Amelia suddenly straightened in excitement and pulled his hand against her belly. Her surprisingly rounded but hard belly. He felt something move under his hand. He looked questioningly into her eyes and saw the confirmation there. "Oh no," he breathed.

Amelia's face fell.

"Is it mine?"

Amelia glared at him.

"I'm not questioning your fidelity. It's just..." He leaned against the door frame for support. "...if it's mine, that means it isn't human."

Amelia gave him a different glare.

"Two-thirds human isn't human," he argued back.

He sank down to the ground and buried his face in his hands. He didn't bother with questions like, 'How could this happen?' or 'What have I done?' because he knew the answers perfectly well. He should have been more careful, but he had assumed that as a chimera he wasn't capable of having children. Amelia shook his shoulder. He ignored her. She shook it more insistently.

He realized he was being selfish so he stood up again and asked her, "How are you doing? I don't know what effect carrying a part-golem, part-demon child would have on the mother."

Amelia struck a pose of glowing health.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this? It could be dangerous for you."

Amelia put a protective hand over her belly and glared at him again.

"Typical Amelia, no sense of self-preservation whatsoever."

Amelia indicated again, this time with an air of exasperation, that she was the very picture of glowing health. She grabbed him by his cloak clasp and pulled him inside so they could continue the conversation somewhere other than the threshold.

Zelgadis paced the room restlessly. "I'll just have to find a cure for both of us. I'll redouble my efforts. I'll make this right."

Amelia grabbed him as he went past and pulled him onto the couch. She put an arm around his shoulders, put his hand on her belly again and looked at him meaningfully.

With the thoughts whirling in his head, he couldn't understand what she was trying to say. He stared at her blankly. She touched his chest, then hers, then their hands on top of her belly. Then she kissed him.

It was a message of emotions rather than words but his mind automatically handed him a rough translation of, 'This isn't a problem; it's a baby. We're a family.'

He broke free and started toward the door. He heard a muffled sound of protest behind him. He turned back to look. Amelia was taking off her collar.

He quickly went back and put his hands over hers to stop her. "I just need time to think. I won't go far."

Amelia looked up at him with tears in her eyes but nodded understanding.

He headed for the garden door instead of the front door. The woodpile caught his eye. Good, something to take out his feelings on.

He had chopped enough wood to last them until winter and the sun was starting to set by the time his head finally felt clear. He rinsed himself clean of sweat with a bucket of water from the well and went inside to face Amelia.

She was sitting on the couch, looking unusually subdued and sewing a baby-sized shirt. She looked up at him with a mixture of wariness and hope as he walked in.

Zelgadis knelt down at her feet and handed her a jewelry box. "I was going to tell you that this wasn't an engagement ring but just a present because I love you, but now... It can be an engagement ring, wedding ring, whatever you like."

Amelia opened the box and hugged him in delight.

"I'm going to stay here with you until after the baby is born. If something goes wrong, one recovery spell could mean the difference between life and death."

Amelia nodded enthusiastic agreement. She pulled him up onto the couch beside her and burrowed into his arms. For a very long time they just held each other, happy to be together no matter what the future held.

Some time later, Zelgadis said, "When I resisted getting married I wasn't trying to escape my commitment to you. I was planning to remain your husband in all but name as long as we're here and switch to being your faithful knight when you went back to Seyruun so that you would be free to marry someone more suitable. Either way, I planned to always love you and protect you. I don't know if I made that clear at the time."

Amelia shook her head.

"Now, though, there doesn't seem to be any point in not getting married." He put a hand on her belly. "Blood binds more strongly than any ring."

Amelia put her hand on top of his and returned his serious gaze.

"Did you know the last time I was here? Is that why you wanted to get married?"

Amelia shook her head. She pointed to the door with a mock-angry expression, walked two fingers down her leg, made her gestures for sundown and sun up twice, and then put on an expression of suspicion turning into dismay, turning into a wistful gaze into the distance.

"You realized two days after I left? And ever since then you've been waiting here with a chimera in your belly and no ring on your finger unsure whether I was ever coming back? That must have been rough."

She grimaced agreement but then settled into his arms with a sigh of contentment.

"Yes, I'm here now," he said wryly. "Now you're free to be the barefoot, pregnant mother of a family of chimeras in a shack in the middle of nowhere. I hope it makes you happy."

Amelia waved her arms around indignantly.

"Okay, fine, a charming and well-kept little house in the middle of nowhere, but the rest of it still stands."

Amelia accepted his retraction with a satisfied nod and gave him a smile that implied that she was very happy with that plan indeed.

* * *

><p>They had to endure plenty of teasing at their wedding about the bride being heavily pregnant, but it was all good-spirited. Amelia looked even more radiant than usual in a dress she'd sewn herself in between making baby clothes. It was cut to emphasize the fullness of her breasts, which had grown from large to truly extraordinary since she'd become pregnant, and to de-emphasize the fullness of her belly.<p>

After the ceremony, the mayor came up to shake Zel's hand and give Amelia a fatherly hug. "May I be the first to offer my congratulations? It's a good thing we have a new name for you, Mrs. Greywords, because 'silent maiden' was becoming an increasingly inaccurate description."

Zel and Amelia exchanged glances. Zel knew that Amelia had no intention of changing her name to match his, but he also knew that she had no intention of revealing her real family name. By unspoken agreement, they let the mistaken assumption stand. For as long as they remained in this town, she would be Amelia Greywords.

"Thank you," Zel said for both of them.

* * *

><p>It wasn't an easy birth but it wasn't as difficult as Zelgadis had feared. Amelia was strong, energetic and unafraid of pain, and it turned out that the baby had skin as smooth as polished stone and only a few wisps of hair as fine as jeweller's wire. Thanks to a recovery spell, Amelia was soon cured not only of any extra damage caused by the baby being a chimera, but even of the bruising normal new mothers had to put up with. The midwife described it overall as, "about average for a first birth except for that creepy silence."<p>

When it was all over, Zelgadis anxiously searched Amelia's face to be sure she was really okay. She smiled back reassuringly and handed him his child. He unwrapped the blankets to see what he had wrought. The baby was a boy. His skin was thinner and more translucent than Zel's, making him look lavender rather than blue. He didn't have enough hair to judge the colour accurately but what little hair he did have glinted like silver against his purple scalp. His ears were pointed but rounder than Zel's. Other than that, he was a typical newborn with huge eyes, a tiny nose and little spastic hands that liked to latch on to adult fingers.

"I think his eyes are going to be as blue as yours," Zel said wonderingly. It was finally sinking in that the baby was a real person. He had a son. He re-wrapped the blankets so the baby wouldn't get cold. "Since you can't name him, I will. His name is Rodimus."

Amelia looked like that wasn't the name she would have picked, but she nodded acceptance.

Little Rodimus proved to be a generally happy-tempered but intense child. He did all the usual baby things like staring with myopic curiosity at everything around him, throwing up on people's shoulders and failing to sleep through the night. He seemed completely unaware that he was a chimera.

Looking after a newborn was too much work for one person to handle on her own so Zelgadis stayed with them for the first few months. Finally though, as the seasons started to change for the third time since he'd last left the town, he told Amelia, "I need to go back to searching for my cure. With little Rodi here, it's twice as hard to leave but twice as urgent that I do."

She held him tightly in protest but nodded her understanding.

As he strode out of the claustrophobically boring town at last, Zelgadis felt the lightness of freedom but at the same time he felt his heart rip in two with half of it staying behind in the little stone house on the hill.


	6. Year 6

Year 6

Zelgadis walked to the window and looked out at the storm outside. Snow was rapidly piling up on the window sill and sticking to the glass. Lina came up beside him. "It looks like it's going to be a cold night," she observed.

"Yeah", he agreed, mind still far away. "I wish was home with Amelia tonight rather than stuck in a drafty inn room. There are drafts there too, but we have a bearskin blanket on the bed that can keep out the chill on even the coldest nights."

"Wait. 'We' have a bearskin blanket on 'the' bed. Are you...sleeping with Amelia?" Lina asked in shock.

Oops! "I...uh," Zel stammered.

"Why are you so surprised, Lina?" Gourry asked from the table where he was sitting, sipping wine. "It's normal for married people to sleep together, isn't it?"

"But they're not married," Lina said in the tones of one tired of explaining the obvious all the time. "Right, Zel?"

"Actually..." he trailed off into guilty silence. "How did you know?" he asked Gourry.

"You're wearing a wedding ring. I didn't think it was a secret," Gourry said, concerned that he'd said something he shouldn't have.

What Gourry said was true but it was a thin band under a thick pair of gloves. Most people wouldn't have noticed. However, most people weren't Gourry.

"I knew it!" Lina shouted. "I knew that if we let you be our sole source of information on Amelia you'd leave out important stuff!" She threw herself angrily into the seat opposite Gourry and poured herself a glass of wine.

"But, Lina, you haven't told him..." Gourry stopped when Lina pinned him with a glare.

Zelgadis noted Lina's slight blush and decided to prod. "Haven't told me what?" he asked innocently.

"Never mind that," Lina said quickly. "If you hadn't told us about you and Amelia, I'm guessing you haven't told anyone else either?"

Zelgadis looked out the window again to avoid meeting her eyes. "No one outside the town."

"Prince Phil is going to kill you. You know that, right?"

"Why do you think I haven't told him?"

"You should go and get it over with. You're going to have to 'fess up sooner or later and it's only going to get worse the longer you wait."

"Better late than later," Gourry agreed.

"I know you're right, but..." Zel shuddered.

"You should have thought of that before you married Amelia," Lina said unsympathetically.

Zelgadis grimaced and rubbed at his face wearily with one hand. He joined them at the table and emptied the last of the bottle into his glass.

They talked for some time about the occurrences they were investigating and who might be behind them, but didn't come to any new conclusions.

Finally Lina said, "Come on, Gourry. Let's get to bed. We may end up snowed in tomorrow but, just in case we don't, we should all get a good night's sleep."

"Well at least you two will be warm tonight," Zel said morosely with an undertone of smugness.

"W-what do you mean?" Lina asked too innocently.

"One of the side effects of living with someone who doesn't talk is that I've become very good at reading facial expressions and body language, and you two are doing a lousy job of keeping your secret in any case. Congratulations, by the way."

Lina protested, "We're not... I mean, maybe once or twice we..." She realized that Gourry's goofy grin made her attempts at denial pointless and sighed resignedly. "I guess we got that third inn room for nothing."

"Good night, Zelgadis," Gourry said, putting a consoling arm around Lina's shoulders.

"Yeah, good night, Zel," Lina echoed.

"Good night," he replied. After they left, he walked back to the window and stared out into the snow again, missing his family.

* * *

><p>"Mr. Zelgadis," Prince Philionel greeted him.<p>

Zelgadis inclined his head in a sketchy bow. "Your highness."

"You have news about Amelia?" the prince prompted when the chimera failed to say anything further.

Zelgadis nodded tensely. "She's a mother."

"My Amelia? My Amelia is having a baby?"

"She's already had him. He'll be six months old next week."

"And you're only telling me about this now?" Prince Phil visibly drew upon his pacifist discipline to keep his calm.

"As some friends pointed out to me, better late than later." Zelgadis couldn't meet the prince's eyes so he studied the wood-grain of the corner of the table.

"Why did you wait so long to tell me? What's wrong?" He eyed Zelgadis' unsmiling face with concern. "Who's the father?"

Zelgadis took a deep breath and admitted. "I am. And, yes, that means the baby is a chimera. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."

"You?" Prince Phil shouted, enraged by this betrayal. His hands balled into fists but his voice sounded bewildered and almost gentle as he asked, "Do you love her?"

Zelgadis was startled by the question. "More than anyone else in the world. Except maybe Rodi, our son."

Prince Phil relaxed slightly. "Are you planning to get married?"

"Actually...we already got married before the baby was born. But you could probably declare the marriage invalid since Amelia didn't give her vows out loud or use her full name."

Prince Phil started to get angry again. "Is that what you want?"

"I thought that's what you would want." Zelgadis looked away again. "She ought to be married to someone noble, or at least human. She deserves so much better than to be a subsistence farmer, village healer and the mother of a chimera."

"Did you tell Amelia that?" there was a hint of amusement in the prince's booming voice.

"I tried to back when she first suggested we get married. That brought me back to my senses, but it turned out that she was already pregnant by then."

"What do you mean, 'back to your senses'?" Prince Phil asked dangerously.

"I remembered that Amelia is a princess and I'm a freak so there is no way we belong together." His voice filled with anger at himself. "I know that! But it's so easy to forget when I'm there with Amelia and Rodimus, surrounded by the furniture I built with my own hands, eating food I helped make. It feels like my home, my family. All the people there treated us like a couple even before we were, and Amelia... When she smiles at me..." He trailed off, embarrassed to say anything more in front of her father.

To Zel's surprise, Prince Phil smiled, clasped his shoulder warmly (although a bit too powerfully), and said, "I understand."

"You...you do?" Zel stammered.

"Amelia's mother was just the same. When she decided I was the one she wanted, there was no resisting her. Ah, what a woman! I love her still, even though she's been dead these many years." He sighed sentimentally. "If my daughter has decided she wants you, I'm not going to even try to stand in her way. And you're a good man, even if hiding all this so long shows a shameful lack of courage!"

Zelgadis hung his head. "I'm sorry. I should have asked your permission when things first started going this way, but it never even occurred to me that you might say yes."

Prince Philionel frowned at the fact that he'd gone ahead anyway, but decided to forgive him. "I remember the day I introduced my father to my intended bride. He was not happy. He thought a sorceress who specialized in black magic and dressed in a leather bikini wasn't a suitable wife for a prince of Seyruun. Well, he came around eventually, and she made a fine princess."

"Amelia's mother...dressed in a leather bikini?" Zelgadis asked in shock.

"And a cape. And she had this little skull necklace... Ah, she was so beautiful!" Prince Phil sighed nostalgically. "What I'm trying to say is that I understand why a young man might pursue a relationship for some time before telling his father, let alone the girl's father. Waiting until you have a six-month-old son is definitely too long, but I'll forgive you on the condition that you take good care of my daughter and grandson." He looked up towards heaven and exclaimed with joy, "I have a grandson!"

When the echoes cleared away, Zelgadis said shakily. "I never thought you'd take the news so well. I don't know what to say."

"Why don't you go back to your family? Maybe take a break from searching for your cure for a while?" Prince Phil suggested with a broad wink.

"But Rodimus shares my condition. For his sake..."

"There will be plenty of time to look when he's older. Children change so fast at that age it would be a shame to miss anything. And maybe stone skin isn't such a bad thing for someone in line to the throne of Seyruun to have. Helps with survival you know," Prince Phil laughed loudly.

Zelgadis smiled tentatively. He bowed gratefully to his father-in-law and left the room, shaking with relief.

* * *

><p>"Did you hear? There was a wagon attacked by bandits not fifteen miles south of here!" Huey said.<p>

"How scary!" his wife Sophie quavered.

Zelgadis and Amelia were having supper at the young couple's house while Rodimus played on the floor with their son, who was around his age.

"That's the first I've heard of bandits in this area," Zel said conversationally.

"It's the first time I've heard of any since that bandit slaying girl cleaned them all out years ago," Huey said.

"Lina Inverse?" Zel asked.

"Yeah, that sounds like the right name."

"They said she was just a little girl, scarcely older than I was at the time," Sophie said. "Can you imagine? I mean, what's this world coming to?"

"I heard she was only thirteen when she ran away from home to seek her fortune," Zel supplied helpfully.

"Didn't she have any proper parents?" Sophie said pityingly.

Amelia put a finger to her lips to stop Zel from revealing their connection to Lina, but her eyes were laughing. He obediently changed the subject. "Mr. Nolan is selling a large batch of Amelia's medicines in the towns to the south for us later this week. I hope he doesn't get attacked."

"Heaven forbid!" Sophie exclaimed.

"Somebody really should do something about those bandits," Huey said forcefully, failing to volunteer for the job.

Zelgadis noticed Amelia's jaw set. He shook his head at her subtly.

"Maybe the king will send some of his knights," Sophie said hopefully.

"Maybe," Zelgadis replied skeptically, thinking that the king was unlikely to bother with such a small outbreak of violence. "What do you think, my princess?"

Amelia glared at him for his choice of endearment.

Just then, crying broke out on the floor. It turned out that the boys had gotten into a fight over a toy. Zane had hit Rodimus and then started crying because his hand hurt. Rodimus had started crying because Zane was crying. The mothers quickly sorted the situation out and scooped up the babies into soothing hugs. The conversation never got back to the topic of bandits.

The next morning when Zel woke up the other half of the bed was empty. He got dressed, made breakfast for himself and Rodimus and fed, cleaned and dressed the baby. Then he went down the hill to the town and knocked on Huey and Sophie's door. A very surprised Sophie opened the door.

"Would you mind looking after Rodi for a few hours?" Zel asked. "I think Amelia's gone after the bandits and I want to follow her just in case she needs backup."

"She's _what?_" Sophie exclaimed.

"Gone after the bandits," Zelgadis repeated himself dryly. "Probably."

"How terrifying!"

"Yes, Amelia can be merciless," Zel agreed. "So, will you look after Rodi?"

"Of course. You must be beside yourself with worry!" Sophie said, perhaps in the hope that saying so would make him start acting like it.

"Even limited to the spells she can cast without a spoken invocation, Amelia should be more than a match for a gang of bandits as long as she doesn't get so caught up in posing that she forgets to attack." Zelgadis grimaced, wishing he was more confident the 'as long as' part of that was a remote possibility.

"Well, I suppose she did kill that bear..." Sophie said doubtfully.

Zelgadis dropped his son into her arms and took to the skies.

He headed south in his ray wing bubble, scanning for signs of trouble from above the treetops. For a long time everything looked completely normal but finally he saw lightning crash down from out of a clear sky. He raced toward the location where it hit.

Amelia was standing on a tree branch at the edge of a rough camp with her cloak streaming in the wind. Under it, she was wearing a belted tunic and loose trousers not too different in fit from her old hero's costume. Zelgadis landed on a tree branch of his own a bit further away where he could observe without being seen.

The bandits had spotted her. They were pointing. Some were laughing while others looked worried. Once Amelia was sure she had everyone's attention, she pinned them all with an accusatory finger and launched into her justice speech. She kept it simple since the bandits wouldn't be able to understand her signs anyway, but Zelgadis saw that she did manage to work a few phrases about 'justice' and 'evil doers' into the series of poses. She must have also managed to work in the gestures to cast her visfarank spell because when she finished she leapt down into the middle of the bandits and started throwing punches that sent them flying in all directions, her fists wrapped in glowing balls of force.

When they scattered in terror, Amelia levitated back up into the tree and sent out fistfuls of freeze arrows to stop them in their tracks. Zelgadis picked off a few bandits who tried to run past him with quiet freeze arrows of his own.

Within minutes, the fight was over. Amelia smugly surveyed her prisoners. She whirled, startled, when Zelgadis landed beside her but held back from attacking him.

"Let's tie them up and leave them just outside the nearest town," Zelgadis suggested quietly, producing some rope. "We'll miss out on any bounty, but I know you've been trying to avoid being seen outside of Shaid." He had his hood pulled low and his scarf pulled high to hide all of his face except his eyes.

Amelia nodded agreement with his suggestion. After they dropped off the bandits (literally), Zel cast a burst rondo spell above their heads to attract attention and then the two quickly flew off together.

"Oh good, you found her!" Sophie sighed with relief when they went to pick up Rodimus. "She didn't really try to go after bandits single-handedly, did she?"

Amelia held up her fingers in a 'v' and smirked.

"They shouldn't be causing any more trouble," Zelgadis confirmed.

Sophie looked faint.


	7. Year 7

Year 7

The lime tree was covered with flowers that spring. It had produced a few blossoms the previous year but they hadn't come to anything. Since the summer Zelgadis had first seen the tree, it had grown from a a spindly collection of branches only a few inches high into a bushy young tree as tall as he was. Although she tried to hide it, Amelia was filled with tension every time she looked at it. As far as Zelgadis could tell, in the last six and a half years she had never missed a day watering it. He knew for sure that neither rain nor snow, fever nor childbirth had stopped her. He had tried to fill in for her a few times but she had always shaken her head at him and done it over herself.

As the months passed, the flowers fell off and were replaced by buds that grew into fruit. The fruit swelled until finally it was ready to harvest.

Zelgadis was using Amelia's slate and chalk to work on designs for the upgraded waterwheel the miller wanted, but his attention was on her rather than his slide rule. She had brought in a basket of limes and was using the juice and grated skins to make some kind of lotion. He could smell the pleasant, citrus scent from the other side of the room but he doubted the purpose was merely cosmetic.

Or maybe the limes were just limes, he thought, as Amelia added sugar and water to the remaining juice to turn it into limeade. She brought him a tall glass of the refreshing beverage, poured some into a cup with a spout for Rodimus and then helped herself to a smaller glass.

Zelgadis nodded his thanks. The limeade tasted delicious on this hot summer afternoon. They finished off the last of it with supper and then Amelia took her time tucking Rodi into bed. He now had a little bed of his own in the room that had once been Zel's.

Zelgadis noticed as she came out of the baby's room that she was carrying the pot of lime lotion, but before he could question her about it, she kissed him with intent and pulled him toward their bedroom. He willingly followed her. She lured him out of his clothes and then pushed him down on the bed and started rubbing his back with strong, lotion-covered hands.

Zel didn't know what he'd done to deserve this but he was more than happy to accept it. He sighed in pure bliss as the tension melted out of his body. In fact, he must have relaxed so much that he fell asleep because the next thing he was aware of was waking up in the dawn light.

Amelia was asleep beside him with her dark hair rumpled against the pillow. She must have felt him stir because she opened her eyes and looked back at him. She studied him intently and then her face lit up with one of the most brilliant smiles he had ever given him (and that was saying something).

He reached out to stroke her hair lovingly but was frozen in place by sensation as overwhelming as it was unexpected. Her hair felt soft against his fingers. The sheets felt soft against his skin. And the hand touching Amelia's hair was pink.

He pulled back his hand and held the other up beside it to compare. Both looked completely human. So did his arms and, when he pushed back the covers, every other bit of himself he could see. The hair falling past his eye was darker than he was used to and flowed like soft hair rather than stiff metal.

"I'm...I'm cured!" he gasped.

Amelia grinned, taking pleasure in his pleasure.

"You did this, didn't you?" Zel demanded. "That lime lotion...and the lime juice you fed me." The realization hit him. "Amelia, don't tell me that all of this - all seven years of loneliness and silence - was for me?"

Amelia's smile told him that she considered the result well worth the sacrifice.

"But when you started we were just friends. You had no way to know that I would find you or that we would fall in love and have a son." Another realization hit him. "Rodimus!"

He quickly threw on some clothes (taking pleasure even in his hurry in the feeling of cloth against his skin) and rushed to the baby's room with Amelia following right behind him.

The little boy was fast asleep in his little bed. The silvery sheen had gone out of his hair, leaving it a soft, dark purple, and his skin was the colour of peaches and cream rather than lavender. His little ear, peeking out of his overgrown hair, was smoothly rounded. Amelia yanked back the covers and checked over every inch of his little body. All human.

Rodimus started to cry at the rude awakening. Zelgadis picked him up and tried to soothe him, but that just made Rodi's tears turn to panicked screams as if he thought he was being kidnapped. Zel hastily handed the boy over to Amelia and left the room.

The screams soon faded to muffled sobs and then (as far as Zel's muted human ears could detect) to silence. A few minutes later, Amelia emerged from the room. Zel caught a glimpse of Rodimus tucked back into bed again before she shut the door.

"I suppose this would be a shock for him," Zelgadis said.

Amelia nodded agreement, eyes filled with compassion for her child.

"He'll adjust."

Amelia nodded agreement again. Then she unfastened her necklace of silence and dropped it on the floor. She walked up to Zel and murmured in his ear, voice husky with disuse, "I love you."

He hugged her impulsively, surprised by how moved he felt at hearing her voice again.

"I love you!" Amelia repeated louder. "I've been longing to say that for six years. Well, nine really but at first it was just shyness holding me back."

This morning was just full of disconcerting but pleasant surprises.

She touched his cheek. "You look wonderful as a human. I always tried to imagine what you'd look like human but the reality is better than anything I imagined!"

Zelgadis just watched her, wondering if it was really possible to feel as happy as he felt in that moment.

"Rodi's name is Rodimus Phil De Seyruuun," Amelia added sternly.

Zelgadis nodded acceptance, smiling helplessly.

"And 'turmeric' is pronounced 'ter-me-rick', not 'tu-mer-ic'."

When he continued to just stare at her with a smile, Amelia said, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

Zelgadis embraced her tenderly and whispered in a voice choked with emotion, "I'd almost forgotten what your voice sounds like." He had tears in his eyes.

Amelia kissed him lovingly and then exclaimed, startled, "That feels so different!" When he looked worried she added reassuringly, "But in a good way."

"A lot of things are going to be different in our life now," Zel said soberly.

"I should write to Daddy to let him know...well, everything! But first," she smiled wickedly, "I want to find out what else feels different." She grabbed his soft, flesh-covered hand and pulled him toward the bedroom.

Later, holding each other, Amelia said, "Oh Zelgadis, I'm so glad it worked! I mean, I had faith that as long as my heart was strong and I stayed true to my purpose everything would work out, and my life here wasn't so bad, especially when you were here, but there were moments when I was so scared it would turn out I was doing all this for nothing!"

"I still can hardly believe you went through so much just for my sake. You are an amazing woman."

They lingered in bed, talking (Amelia seemed determined to fit seven years worth of words into one morning) and enjoying skin-to-skin contact, until a discontented toddler appeared in their doorway. Amelia knelt down in front of him and said, "Good morning, Rodimus."

The boy's eyes grew wide and he ran screaming back to his room. "He's not taking this very well, is he?" Amelia said, chagrined.

"Maybe if I sing to him from outside the door while you hold him silently?" Zelgadis suggested.

They put the plan into action. Soon they managed to get the boy calmed down enough that Amelia could dress him.

They were all eating breakfast, Zel in a hooded cloak, when there was a knock on the door. Zelgadis answered it. It was the baker's daughter, Betsy. She startled at the sight of him.

"You must be here for the herbs your mother ordered," Zel said.

"M-Mr. Zelgadis?" the girl stuttered in disbelieving recognition.

Amelia came to the door to see who it was and then vanished into the garden to pick the required herbs.

"Mr. Zelgadis, you're...you're..."

"Human?" He grinned. "Yes, I am."

She peered past him to the table, where Rodimus was taking advantage of the absence of his parents to throw food on the floor. "And the little one too!"

"Yes."

Amelia returned with several little bundles of herbs.

"Thank you," Betsy said absentmindedly, still staring at Zelgadis and Rodimus.

"You're welcome," Amelia said sweetly.

The girl's eyes grew, if possible, even wider. She ran back down the hill as fast as safety would allow.

Zelgadis put his arm around Amelia. "In another hour the whole town will know," he said wryly.

Amelia looked out over the view. "I'm going to miss this town."

"I'm not," Zelgadis said. Amelia elbowed him. "Well, maybe a little," he admitted.

* * *

><p>Zelgadis was in front of the house, working on a trunk that would allow Amelia to carry her garden home to Seyruun with her once they were ready to spring a second set of shocks on Rodi, when a squad of soldiers rode into town. He watched with a frown as they stopped at Mr. Nolan's store - perhaps to ask for directions? - and then continued on toward the foot of the hill. When he was sure they were coming to his house, he put down the delicate seed tray he'd been piecing together and stood up to meet them.<p>

The leader of the soldiers was panting a bit by the time he finished climbing the steep hill in heavy armour. Zelgadis looked at him inquiringly, refusing to make the first move. The soldier eyed Zel's rough work clothes and untidy hair and said doubtfully. "We're looking for Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun and the man in the store said the only Amelia in this town lives here. This is 'the Greywords house', right?"

Zelgadis nodded and called out, "Amelia, there are some people here to see you! It looks like a squadron of Elmekia's army in dress uniforms led by a knight of the second order!"

The knight looked mildly startled that he'd identified their uniforms so accurately. "The princess really is here?" he asked in surprise.

Zelgadis nodded taciturnly.

"And you are...her manservant?"

Zel smiled thinly. "More or less. I'm her husband."

"Your highness, I'm so sorry..."

Zel waved the apology away. "She may be royalty but I'm just an ordinary guy."

Amelia stepped out of the house with Rodimus in her arms. She had been feeding her son his morning snack and, as usual, he had managed to get food all over his face, his hands, his clothes, and his mother. The knight looked at her as if he found it impossible to believe there was any connection between the food-spattered peasant in front of him and the princess he was looking for. The men behind him exchanged bewildered glances.

Amelia surveyed her visitors silently. She suddenly barked, "At ease!"

The soldiers all straightened up into parade rest and then looked surprised at themselves for doing so.

Amelia looked at Zelgadis, who asked, "What's this about?"

"Forgive me, Your Highness," the knight said meekly to Amelia. "We were sent to investigate a rumour that the lost princess of Seyruun - you - was living in northern Elmekia. There were some bandits who said they were captured by a girl who didn't speak and a man with metal hair..."

"I knew that would come back to haunt us," Zelgadis muttered.

"...although I'm not sure what that has to do with you. Then, when we came to this area to investigate, we heard that there was a healer in this town with the skill of a Seyruunese priestess."

"You've found us. Now what?" Zelgadis asked.

"Now I am to escort you back to the capital with all honour so that the king can welcome you properly."

Amelia and Zelgadis exchanged looks. "Of course we would be happy to accept your offer," Amelia said regally. "Just give us some time to prepare."

"You can wait down in the town," Zelgadis suggested pointedly.

Once the soldiers were out of earshot, Amelia said, "It will be a good practice run for taking Rodi to Seyruun." She didn't sound very enthusiastic.

A quick bath and a change of clothes later, they headed down to the town. They didn't have any clothes suitable for royalty, but they felt no shame wearing clean clothes that Amelia had made. As they walked into town, the villagers stared at Amelia with new eyes.

Betsy asked timidly as they walked past, "You aren't really a princess, are you?"

"So the soldiers have been talking," Zel said grimly.

Amelia sighed in resignation and nodded.

"It seems you've finally learned her real name and why she didn't want me to tell you," Zelgadis sighed ruefully.

"This explains a lot about you both," the mayor said with a weak smile. "It's been an honour having you here."

"We'll be back," Zelgadis said. "At least to pack up our stuff."

Amelia hugged several of her friends good bye. "Would you water my garden for me while I'm away? We should be back soon," she asked the one with the greenest thumb.

Still, everyone knew it would never be the same.

* * *

><p>After they got back from the royal court of Elmekia (where the youngest prince was very disappointed to discover that the mysterious princess they'd discovered was already married), they quickly packed up everything from their house that they wanted to keep into a wagon and got out of town. On their second day on the road, a group that looked like a Seyruunese honour guard passed them going the other way but the group paid no attention to the very ordinary looking family in the very ordinary looking wagon. On their fifth day on the road, while they were stopped for lunch, a little old woman leaning on a staff approached them.<p>

"That's her!" Amelia said excitedly. "That's the old woman who told me what I had to do to cure you and gave me the magic lime seed!"

Zelgadis stepped forward to meet the crone and took her claw-like hand in his. "If what Amelia says is true, then thank you. Thank you! I can't thank you enough!"

The old woman pushed back her hood and as she did so her face changed from ancient female to male of indeterminate age. Her clothes changed from ragged brown to neatly pressed black. Her hair turned from wispy white to smooth purple. Her gnarled staff smoothed out and grew a red gem. "You're very welcome," said Xellos.

Zelgadis dropped his hand and leapt back, "You!"

Amelia was so shocked all she could do was point a trembling finger at him.

"Please forgive the deception. I thought you might not trust the information if you knew I was the source," Xellos said with a carefree smile.

"_You_ set this up? But why?" Zelgadis demanded.

"Is it so surprising that I would want to help out my friends?" Xellos asked mildly.

"You're a mazoku. You don't have any friends," Zelgadis retorted.

"Then you could say that I wanted to do you a favour to make up for destroying the copies of the Clair Bible you were looking for."

"I could say a lot of things. That wouldn't make them true."

"...Or you could say I was curious to see if Miss Amelia would go through with it. My, she certainly is a determined young lady!"

Zelgadis grabbed the front of Xellos' shirt. "Why you sadistic monster! Was that it? Did you want to watch her suffer?"

Amelia grabbed Zel's sleeve. He looked back at her and let Xellos go. "You're right," he said to Amelia. "It worked." He turned back to Xellos. "Whatever your motivations, thank you."

Xellos looked surprised. Then, with a smile and a wink, he vanished.


	8. Year 8

Year 8

"Lina! Gourry! Over here!" Zelgadis called. Gourry spotted him right away but he watched Lina's eyes scan past him repeatedly before she finally recognized him.

"Zel! I almost didn't recognize you now that you're human. Nice duds."

"Yeah, those are some fancy clothes," Gourry agreed. "You look like a real Seyruunese bigshot."

"That's the idea," Zelgadis said in an offhand manner, but he was pleased by the compliment. "Amelia had some paperwork she wanted to get finished before you got here but she didn't quite make it or else she'd be here to greet you too."

"So you live here now? You've given up travelling?" Lina asked as Zelgadis led them into the palace.

"I was only travelling in order to find my cure. Now I don't need to anymore."

He saw that the poster-children for wanderlust found this explanation hard to believe. "Amelia and I go on diplomatic missions and we clean out monsters that cause trouble around the kingdom. We still travel."

They looked appeased.

"So, now that you don't need to search for your cure, what do you do with yourself all day?" Lina asked.

"Between playing escort to Amelia and pursuing my own interests, I keep busy enough. Living in the lap of luxury isn't exactly a hardship so stop looking at me pityingly, Lina."

"No, I'm envious!" Lina protested unconvincingly. "I always wanted to marry a prince!"

"Instead of me?" Gourry asked plaintively.

"Well, _obviously_ you're the one I actually married," Lina snapped. Then she relented and patted Gourry on the shoulder. "I wouldn't trade you for any prince."

"So, you two did finally get married? Why didn't you invite me to the wedding?" Zelgadis said in a mock-hurt tone, starting up a staircase.

"We would have, but you kind of vanished off the face of the earth for a while there." Lina scowled at him. "Besides, you didn't invite us to yours. Speaking of which, did the royal council cause much trouble about accepting your marriage to Amelia?"

"That would have been hard, given the existence of Rodimus. I think the fact that I'm human now made it a lot easier too."

"What do you mean 'the existence of Rodimus'? If you're talking about that old axe guy he's been dead for years!" Lina looked with concern at Zel.

"Oh, that's right. I never told you, did I?" Zelgadis opened a door onto a spacious sitting room, elegantly furnished except for the remarkable number of pots of herbs covering the window ledges and side tables. "This is Rodimus. Rodi, I'd like you to meet my good friends Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev."

The little purple-haired boy stood up from where he had been building towers out of blocks and gleefully knocking them down. He carefully said, "Hewo, pweased to meet you," and gave a reasonable approximation of a courtly bow.

"Well done, Rodi! That was just right!" Zel congratulated him effusively.

"Hello, little man," Gourry said warmly, kneeling down so that he was closer to eye level with the boy. "What blue eyes you have! Lina, do you think our-"

"I told you, it's too early to tell!" Lina cut him off quickly. She realized that her hand had risen to her belly and smoothed her tunic to cover the gesture. Then she dropped to her knees beside Gourry. "You're right about his eyes. The only person I've ever known with eyes that shade of blue was Amelia...And the only person who would name a kid 'Rodimus' is... Zel, that's a pretty big thing to forget to mention, don't you think!"

"I big! I thwee!" Rodimus said happily.

"Not for another few weeks, you're not," Zelgadis corrected him coolly.

Just then Amelia emerged from a side room. "Miss Lina, Mr. Gourry!" She exclaimed, running to them. "I'm sorry I had to keep you waiting, but now I'm free for the whole time you're here!"

"Amelia!" Lina and Gourry shouted together in delight. Lina added, "Long time, no see!"

Amelia hugged them both with tears in her eyes. "I missed you guys."

"Tell us about what you've been doing all this time," Lina demanded. "Zel told us some of it but," she glanced darkly at the small boy watching the proceedings with solemn interest, "he obviously left some things out."

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid it won't be nearly as interesting as what you've been up to. Zel told me a little about your adventures too, but he wasn't there for very many of them."

Zelgadis caught her eye, slightly inclined his head toward Lina and made a gesture like rocking something in his arms.

"You're going to have a baby? That's wonderful!" Amelia exclaimed.

"How on earth did you...? I mean, what on earth gave you that idea?" Lina said.

Amelia's glance at Zelgadis gave it away.

"But we didn't even tell _you_!" Lina protested.

"Amelia and I have developed telepathic powers. Ask anyone in the palace," Zelgadis said gravely.

"You can't fool me. You just used hand gestures," Gourry laughed.

Lina looked annoyed at being the only one not in on the joke, but before she could act on her feelings, a servant came in pushing a snack cart. Lina immediately forgot her annoyance in favour of settling down on one of the couches with a plate of snacks. Gourry sat beside her and tried to reach around her to snatch one of the little sandwiches off her plate but Lina fended him off. Amelia sat down on the facing couch and started to pour tea for everyone. Zelgadis took the other end of Amelia's couch and pulled Rodimus up onto his lap, but not before the boy snatched a fistful of cookies off the cart. The rest of the afternoon passed in happy gobbling of snacks, sipping of tea and exchanging of stories.


End file.
